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 Several people
have written to me to say that they like my
writing style. In fact, Barry likes my style so
much that he does not believe that I am for real. He
writes, “Your
English is simply too damn good for you to be a Japanese
person. The writing flows and there appears to be no
grammatical errors. Have you
lived in the USA or Britain all your life? I have
English friends who could never write so well.”
Well, this is
quite a compliment but also sad that people continue to
stereotype Japanese people. While we all have a
difficult time
learning foreign languages, some of us have worked
very hard at it and have become quite good at it. Japan
can now boast of writers who write in English and
thousands of
Japanese work for foreign companies both in
Japan and outside speaking and writing beautiful
English. I would expect Barry to open his mind and not
start stereotyping Japanese people. He tells me that he
has just
come to Japan. I am sure that such a negative
attitude would not help him a lot especially when he is
teaching English in Japan.
He goes on to add
even more insult to me, “Unfortunately, I only skimmed
the stories etc, but I have nothing particularly nice to
say – I’m sorry. What sort of responses do you usually
get? I’m sure this whole aspect of MyNippon is entirely
farcical – I’m not
looking for romance, but to
find a
Japanese person who can write so well is truly
astonishing (if it's true). So of course you have no
reason to respond to me except to prove/disprove that
you are indeed, a real
Japanese girl - and not, as I
suspect, someone's little fantasy.”
I do write well,
as I have been told many times before, but it is the
result of hard work that many Japanese put in to improve
their
foreign language abilities. When I write, I just
open my heart and write as would speak to someone. There
is nothing better than writing what you feel. Of
course, since I am only one of the contributors to MYNIPPON.com, the editorial team makes sure that the
language is correct. I hope that there are not too many
people like Barry in Japan.
Prejudiced
foreigners
What can I tell
Barry?
Japan gets a lot of foreigners like him and they
all hate it here and then criticize
Japanese society and
culture. These people make no effort to
understand the
culture and find hundreds of ways to reinforce their
prejudices. Then they go back and bitch even more about
us – all because they did not open their hearts and mind
to learning about Japan. We are different people, like
so many other cultures. If people come here and expect
us to change just to make it easy for others, that is
not going to happen. In fact the foreigners need not
change either. We all just have to learn to appreciate
each other.
After
communicating further with Barry and sending him a link
to this page, this is what he had the guts to write to
me, "Yeah, you are perfectly correct with all of your
assumptions about me - I can't
speak Japanese, nor am I
interested in the culture. I endlessly
moan all day
about how horrible it is to
live in Japan. What makes
Japan so special? When people
come to England I don't
think they're arrogant because they don't eat fish and
chips or visit Buckingham Palace. In
England we have a
very ethnically diverse population and so we are
slightly more mature in our attitude towards foreigners.
Japan is the most racist country I have been to -
sometimes the prejudice is beneficial, but why would I
want to assimilate myself into a country that treats
non-Japanese so differently ? So I'll take the money,
move on, and you'll never miss me". He is right about
that. Neither I nor anyone else who is a genuine
lover
of Japan will miss Barry and it is better that he spends
rest of his life in his own home.
Actually I am
impressed by people like Steve who are genuinely trying
to understand the complexities of
Japanese culture. He
and I share our tastes in reading – Haruki Murakami. I
like Murakami since I can relate to some of his
characters. The world has this image of Japanese people
as some weird characters (for being so different) but he
has given personality to those like me who are Japanese
but also more international.
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